


base details

by sanguinarily



Category: Blackadder
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 22:11:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14986664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinarily/pseuds/sanguinarily
Summary: With a flurry of “Try not to Captain B.” and “We’ll jolly well try, sir,” and Darling trying desperately to talk over them and to tell them the directions to the main party room, they leave and Edmund shuffles the cards back into their case.When the being watched gets too much for him he says, “Not invited to the party at all then, Darling?” and Darling makes a small angry noise.“You’ll try something. I don’t trust you alone, Blackadder.”





	base details

  
“Another day, George, another dazzling display of the poor priorities of everybody in this war above the rank of Captain.”

George is still grinning blithely. He’s been grinning blithely since they left the trench for the chateau, and now that they’re walking to Melchett’s office, music swelling through the walls around them and making this seem like some awful parody of war, he shows no sign of stopping. Edmund has the suspicion that George was _born_ grinning blithely and has as such given up on fixing it. George says, “I don’t know, sir,” which is one of the most sensible things he ever says but always manages to ruin with the next thing that comes out of his mouth: “I think it’s bally nice of them to have invited us to a party. Keeping morale high. Pip pip hurrah and by jingo, as you say.”

Edmund arches an eyebrow, though it goes unnoticed, at that particular word choice and says, “George, I want you to know that if I ever say ‘pip pip hurrah and by jingo’ you are to throw me in the nearest madhouse. And besides, you haven’t been invited to a party. You and Baldrick are to be the entertainment.”

“Are we sir?” George still sounds delighted and Edmund scowls at the corridor because glowering at him will do nothing. “Well, slap me thrice and call me Sally, we can use our party tricks! Did you know I can balance five plates on my head and sing all twelve verses of ‘Oh Aunt Fanny, Why Do You Flap So?’?”

“No, George,” Edmund sighs, “I did not. Do feel free not to demonstrate.” He pushes open the wide, gilded, bloody stupid gilded doors; the whole of the front at the Somme could/will die and the Germans could/will advance as far as Calais but Melchett will consider the war for winning as long as he’s somewhere in the world still has gilded doors.

At least on this side there’s a reason to smirk, he muses and says, with an air of amused cheer, “Hello, Darling.”

Look, Edmund thinks, here’s that marvellous twitch as Darling stands and spits out ‘Blackadder’ like a curse, as if he’s enraged at Edmund’s very presence. George doesn’t notice how Darling twitches, and he’d probably just think it a foppish affectation if he did. Edmund keeps the smirk going: “Now,” he says. “Where does he want them? And nothing taxing, mind. The shared capacity for thought is already overworked what with the dressing and the walking and the subsequent standing and not drooling. I’m really rather proud of them, which is a shock.”

Darling glances with a snobbish, slightly upturned lip at Baldrick before snapping his eyes back to Edmund’s with a new and odd gleam.

“I’ll just let the General know you’re here,” he says, meeting Edmund smirk for smirk, “and then he’ll come and fetch the _three_ of you to be poked and prodded by his guests.”

Ah, thence the gleam. Resigned to lost causes but not quite able to help himself, Edmund says, “you mean the two of them, Darling. ‘So the Lieutenant and Private Baldrick can be poked and prodded’.” Dimly he’s aware of some slight Baldrick-sounding protestation in response to this. He ignores it.

Darling’s answering grin is positively ghastly and when he sings, “No I don’t,” he does so like it’s the best news he’s ever been given to deliver, like all his christmases have come at once and Edmund’s the roasted turkey. “Now stay here with the rest of the zoo animals, there's a chap,” here he pats Edmund on the shoulder as he passes, “until you're wanted.”

“Why you little—“ Edmund says to the closing door but then George is crowing “I say, sir, there are some cards over here. Shall we play to calm the nerves before our moment in the sun? My pack bought it in the great trench flood of 1916.”

Edmund deflates slightly — from murderous rage back to his usual simmering hatred — and says, “Of course, George,” even as he’s drifting towards the large and rarely, opportunely, unoccupied desk. Darling’s desk. The desk of the aid de camp to the most useless General in an army where uselessness is practically endemic in the top ranks. He snatches some letters from under a paperweight, Darling’s handwriting but not official business: _Dear Doris, B has escaped yet another court marshal. Dearest K, I do think that you should have it out with this B, darling, you talk of him so often._ He tucks them into a pocket.

George is still laying out cards and Baldrick is polishing his, well, he’s polishing something and Edmund doesn’t overly want to squint and find out what, so Edmund stays at the desk, rummaging. Eventually picking apart the staples on official battle plans — battalions will march into no-man’s land — he finds some servicemen’s letters, bound with twine and shoved into a corner, wedged between a box and an in-tray. He almost puts them down as George calls “All set up for Cheeky Horror, sir!” but doesn’t because it's his writing. That’s his mother’s address. He flicks through the packet. At least a year’s worth of letters held back. He puts them into a pocket.

“Do I know this one, George?”

“What Cheeky Horror, sir? Of course you do. Only a blind and stupid wally wouldn’t.”

Well, that’s that then, he thinks. He says: “well of course, but remind me.”

“Well,” says George, expansively, clearly trying very hard to think, “it’s just like Cats and Spiders but with a dash of Defence Carnivals in that the nines are worth a devil’s trousers if you play them with a slimy six.”

He’s never been more grateful for a door opening in his entire sorry life, even if it is only Darling walking in with a triumphant smile and a: “He wants Lieutenant St Barleigh and Private Baldrick first, then you in about twenty minutes.” ‘You’ said like an insult as usual. He could be promoted to Major and he’d still get a derisive ‘you’ from Darling. Then again, he’d do the same to Darling. He’s loathe to admit that fair’s fair but there is something within him that whenever he sees Darling screams equal! and hates the man for it.

“And will you be joining them as the trained monkey?” he asks and Darling’s scowl is instant. No wonder the man has such a twitch, he thinks, his face changes expression so quickly his eye may as well stay torn between.

He gestures for George and Baldrick to get up and go. “Try not to embarrass me, boys.”

With a flurry of “Try not to Captain B.” and “We’ll jolly well try, sir,” and Darling trying desperately to talk over them and to tell them the directions to the main party room, they leave and Edmund shuffles the cards back into their case.

When the being watched gets too much for him he says, “Not invited to the party at all then, Darling?” and Darling makes a small angry noise.

“You’ll try something. I don’t trust you alone, Blackadder.”

“Don’t you? Oh, that’s a shame. I shall write to my mother about how sad I am.” As he puts the bundle of his letters onto the table, he drops his voice to the sub-arctic: “But she wouldn’t receive it, would she?”

Darling looks surprised but rallies quickly, shoving it all back under smooth disdain. “Ah yes. I’d meant to tell you,” he tries to snatch the letters back but Edmund slaps his own hand down, and he may not be strong but he’s more than a match for a shocked Darling, especially since he’s gasping like a girl at the impropriety. There’s a flush high on Darling’s cheeks as he finally wrestles the letters away. “If you can’t keep things cheery, Blackadder, I’m well with in my remit to keep stopping your letters. Bad for morale, you see. You’ll lose the war at home.”

Letters back safely in some drawer or other — Edmund had little else to do but watch as Darling leant over the desk, unwise enough to show his back, and his backside, to his enemy before quickly turning back around to lean against the desk — Darling makes a show of stowing the key in his breast pocket, just under his row of medals almost identical to Edmund’s.

“I hardly think that’ll matter,” Edmund says. “Melchett and his old pals are losing it quite well on their own here on the front, having _parties_.”

Darling bristles. “How dare you speak of the general that way!”

“I dare very easily,” Edmund drawls. “He’s a buffoon and you can’t tell me he’s not.”

Fingers white-knuckle gripping the desk like a tether, Darling says, “We respect the rank.” He looks horrified the second it leaves his mouth and Edmund, metaphorically — physically he just stands and drifts closer — pounces.

“Ah,” he says. “ _Do we_?”

“Yes, of course we do.”

“But not the man.” He smiles over Darling’s spluttering and moves deftly into his personal space, making him blush deeper and splutter more. “You know, Darling, that’s the closest I’ve ever heard you stray toward insubordination. And besides it’s a bald faced lie: what about me? A Captain and you barely salute me.”

At this Darling manages scowl, and rolls his eyes. “You’re a special case, Blackadder.”

“Oh good I do like to be thought of especially. To be something to,” Edmund brandishes the folded pages of Darling’s correspondence, “write home to Doris about.”

Darling makes a little shocked ‘o’ with his mouth and this close Edmund can see that his lips are chapped under his moustache, can see all his eyelashes, his slightly receding hairline. For a moment Darling looks cowed but then he’s pressing forward, which Edmund had thought him too prudish for, flush against Edmund and saying, “Give those back they’re private.” He’s a knee to Edmund’s groin and he’s taller, the bastard, so he’s already got his fingers over Edmund’s and he’s yanking.

“And mine are what,” Edmund snaps, holding tightly as Darling scratches him, “light reading? You bastard.”

Darling digs his nails in and grabs the letters when Edmund’s grip loosens without his express permission. He shoves them in his pocket with the key but makes no move to shove past Edmund, to leave the cage Edmund’s got him in, just says: “It’s my job, Blackadder.”

Edmund laughs, not nicely, leans close and says, “Office boy.”

“Oh, sod you,” Darling spits, and he’s shifted his knee again, a threat. “You bastard.”

“It’s the army, one gets by.”

He uses Darling’s look of abject shock to lean back a bit, smirking. He almost wishes Darling would start to fight him, just to get more or lose completely the pressure that his prick is starting to pay attention to. But Darling is frozen and Edmund thinks with a maddening, suicidal impulse that it’s him who’ll have to do something first.

“That’s a capital crime,” Darling is saying, quietly, but despite the words he’s settling against the desk, his gaze dropping from Edmund’s eyes to his lips and back.

“We’re at war, Darling,” Edmund tells him, and for once the name doesn’t sound like a joke. “To someone a few miles away our very living is a capital crime.”

When it comes it’s vicious and desperate and afraid. Remembering your own mortality will do that, he supposes. That and a bone-deep and justified hatred. When it comes, they both go in for it at practically the same time.

Darling’s hands come to rest on Edmund’s shoulders and he grits out, “I could have you shot for this,” before he’s back to biting at Edmund’s lips. It figures that kissing Darling would be just like an extension of an argument.

“Listen here you little—” is all he manages before he’s being shoved backwards. He pulls Darling’s wrist as his balance goes and manages, somehow, to manoeuvre Darling under him when they sprawl to the ground. Darling huffs and brings his knee to bear against Edmund’s groin again. “Ah, Christ.”

“Don’t blaspheme,” Darling says, and as admonishments go it’s both milder than he’s used to from Darling and more openly funny, given the circumstances. Edmund raises a wry eyebrow and presses the heel of his hand down to Darling’s groin, payback, and: “Ah,” Darling allows, “Christ.”

“Quite.” Edmund eyes his watch as he scrambles at the buttons of Darling’s trousers — “Am I boring you, Blackadder?” Darling asks, a cruel twist of amusement at his mouth as he reaches to undo Edmund’s jacket and pull him down by the tie for another round of blazing, biting, kisses — and discovers that they have fifteen minutes left; he intends to make the most of them, pops the five buttons and shoves his hand into the heat to draw Darling’s prick out.

Darling shudders and his prick twitches in Edmund’s hand. He closes his fist around it, uses Darling how he would himself: rough, tight at the head. Breathing heavily and with one hand still when Edmund put it when they fell, Darling brings the other to his mouth, stifling noises Edmund would really rather hear. It isn’t as though they need worry about the noise; the ragtime tunes from the ballroom are loud enough through the walls to drown them out.

Edmund gives Darling’s cock a sharp tug and leans back to fumble at his own trousers, watching as Darling’s eyes go wide and his blush, if possible, deepens. Slowly, silently, Darling reaches the hand that was at his mouth forward and grips both their cocks with warm, long fingers ever so slightly dampened from his breath and spit. Edmund rocks into it, adjusts the hand that’s bearing most of his weight and brings it to Darling’s abandoned wrist, gripping tight.

He curls the fingers of his other hand around Darling’s and their pricks and squeezes, eliciting a shocked pant from Darling that turns into a drawn out moan as Edmund pushes both their hands down as much as he can without breaking their grip.

“Hellfire, Blackadder, I’m—” Darling half-whispers, managing the syllables around shallow, hitching breaths and his grip is going slack under Edmund’s fingers. He lets go just long enough for Darling’s hand to fall to his side and resumes. He goes slow and sees him writhe, then faster and watches for Darling’s gasps. “God, Blackadder, please.”

Edmund leans over him, swipes his thumb over the leaking head of Darling’s prick and twists. “Go on then,” he says against his mouth and Darling surges up to kiss him as he comes with a shudder and a pulse of heat over Edmund’s shirt. He’s immensely grateful to Darling for opening his jacket, it’ll let him hide the mess when eventually they’re required in polite, or what passes for it, company.

Darling’s still moving through aftershocks but Edmund starts as a hand, so much softer than his own, circles his cock and squeezes. “By my count,” Darling says, “we’ve not much time. Or do you want us both shot?”

“Well,” Edmund croaks, “maybe if you worked harder, office boy—”

In a moment he isn’t quite able to track, Edmund ends up on his back on the floor with Darling looking down at him and decides that this lazy smile is much, much worse than the usual sneer. Darling works him viciously, too slow then too fast, never letting him come. “What was that?” he asks innocently, loosening his grip to almost nothing and letting Edmund jerk his hips upwards without pity nor mercy.

Edmund, bizarrely, finds himself smiling as he says, “Sadist.” Takes a bastard to know a bastard and Darling has him pinned, literally and figuratively.

“Hm,” Darling murmurs and then reaches down with his free hand to hit Edmund on the cheek. It smarts but he meets Darling’s gaze to find it quizzical. “Quite possibly,” is all he says before he’s leaning down to bite at Edmund’s lips and he’s tightening his hand again, squeeze, down, squeeze, up, twist. Bite. And then Edmund is spilling over his own shirt, luck or forward thinking on Darling’s part, and twitching with sensitivity as Darling bundles him roughly back into his trousers and does the same for himself.

The relative peace of twin laboured breathing in a wide and otherwise empty room, what sounds like a waltz creeping through the walls, is shattered soon enough by an unmistakeable bleating noise. Edmund leaps up, dragging Darling to the second set of doors and fixing him with a speaking look. When the doors swing open, Edmund has not a hair out of place and a half played game of solitaire before him at the table.

“Ah, General! How are my men?”

“Fine, Blackadder, just fine. Your Private is quite the thing, a saucy little bugger.” Melchett blinks and refocuses. “But I wanted you before now, I sent Darling to fetch you.”

“I’ve been here the whole time, sir. Waiting.” It’s refreshing for its honesty. Darling takes the cue.

“Oh Blackadder, there you are. The General is looking for y— Oh, General!” He salutes. He’s a terrible actor, Edmund thinks, what with the twitching and the shaking but Melchett’s an idiot who couldn’t tell his own driver was a woman so he supposes the jig isn’t quite up. Darling looks just disheveled enough to have been running. When the General isn’t looking at him he smirks at Darling and turns over a card.

Melchett blusters. “I say, Darling, what’s the meaning of this?”

“Captain Blackadder was not here when I looked, sir,” Darling tells him in a passable version of his usual distaste for Edmund. “I told him to stay put but—“

“I went to look for you, Captain. Must’ve gotten turned around; rather large, this chateau.”

“Headquarters, Blackadder.” Melchett waggles a bloated finger at him. “We’re not on holiday. Hang on, you said you’d been here the whole time.”

Edmund schools his face into a picture of innocence and passivity, mental punching the living daylights out of the man, — “Did I?” — and Melchett laughs, yanking him out of the chair to slap him on the back. “I suppose you mustn’t have. Wouldn’t lie to a superior officer, eh, Blackadder? Come along to the party, and you Darling.”

As he passes to open the door for them, Darling pats Edmund on the stomach, where he’s sticky and uncomfortable, and Edmund gets the distinct impression that Darling is chalking this as a win for him.

To that he merely murmurs, “Game on,” and walks proudly to this benighted party.

**Author's Note:**

> If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,  
> I’d live with scarlet Majors at the base,  
> And speed glum heroes up the line to death.  
> You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,  
> Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,  
> Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’  
> I’d say—‘I used to know his father well.  
> Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’  
> And when the war was done and youth stone dead,  
> I’d toddle safely home and die — in bed.
> 
> \- Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon


End file.
